


Dr Who Drabbles & Other Stories

by fouryearslaterdrabbles (CheshireCatLife)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Short Drabbles, literally nothing more, posting for the sake of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 19:39:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17310605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCatLife/pseuds/fouryearslaterdrabbles
Summary: just some dr who drabbles that I wanted to publish :)





	1. Drabble I

****He laughs, louder than ever and suddenly everything feels lighter. The air, the ground beneath his feet, his limbs and his bones. All light. Something like that always comes from glee. The smile shapes him, the laugh bubbling through him like the liquid pumps through the TARDIS. And, through all of it, there’s another voice. Another laugh. Another smile.

Rose. It’s always Rose, isn’t it? The impossible possibility. Everything that shouldn’t be being. Everything that can’t happen happening. And there she is, smiling, laughing and taunting him with that wide smile, her white teeth biting down on her tongue as she does that smile that always makes him weak at the knees.

And there they are. Together. Strong as a pair, strong as themselves. They are the two most powerful people on this planet. Who knows, maybe the whole universe. The Doctor would certainly classify himself as so. And, after relentless teasing, Rose may agree with him.

He pulls another lever and they shoot off into space and suddenly, everything really is lighter. Their laughter booms and the TARDIS laughs alongside them. They laugh like the day will never end.

It’s when they crash that they notice their lunacy. But they still don’t stop laughing, amidst the steam and flames and metal. It’s well known to the both of them now that the Doctor always flies worse when he’s laughing.

The floppy brown hair falls into blonde and they laugh harder, their breaths mingling, steaming. Rose stops laughing with an abruptness that the Doctor wasn’t expecting but, whilst he does stop laughing himself, the smile doesn’t leave his face, nor does it leave hers. They stare. They stare like the end of the world is coming. Maybe it is. It always could be. They’re everywhere and nowhere. They are at the beginning and the end of time. Floating in a foreign area of space in a time just as alien. Even to the alien.

‘Doctor.’ Are her first words; she says them like a prayer. She worships him and maybe she doesn’t realise it but he worships her too. Through two lifetimes, through two beautiful mind and two beautiful concepts, he worships her, just as she worships him.

‘Rose.’ His smile beams light, happiness and joy and it makes Rose forget everything bad that came. The darkness that resides in him becomes futile. All that matters is this man. Her man. The one she fell in love with. The one who never loved her back.

But, why does that matter? She is happy loving him. Just like a deity, she doesn’t need that love to be returned, only her prayers answered. And they are. She travels the universe with him, she sees beyond anything any of her generation have. To space, she is just as alien as it is to her.

She is the Bad Wolf. The Bad Wolf against the universe. Always fighting. Always tearing and biting. But loving nonetheless. She is power in its rawest form, unbridled and unattended but so, so beautiful.

No one sees it but him. He knows he is the only one who sees it. Something about that makes him curse the world and bless it all the same. Anger and the lack of appreciation and thankfulness that he is the only one special enough to see just how special she is.


	2. Drabble II

The waves laugh at her. Over and over again they come in and out. Over and over, the sun comes up and the sun goes back down. Over and over, the days pass without the Doctor. Bad Wolf Bay, oh how ironic. And here she is, waiting. Waiting like the dog she’s named after. Waiting for her owner to save her.

She pities herself to the point in which she can barely lift herself out of bed in the morning. She waits and waits and waits, waits until he three-month pregnant mother sends a helicopter unit to bring her back to England. ‘You’ve had enough self-pity for a lifetime. You’re having a cuppa and getting over that bugger.’ Is what her mum says and she can’t help but laugh, no matter how fake the sound is on her lips. But something about it feels better, something about it gives her hope. For something better. Something more than the sand, the waves and the invisible blue box.

That night, she drinks the tea in silence. Mickey watches her with hateful glares, no doubt at the man behind the pain, the man in her mind. Her mother stirs her tea relentlessly like the swirling of the murky water will be enough to create a portal back to their world. Pete doesn’t say a word. In fact, he’s barely gotten around to accepting her as his daughter. She doesn’t think he ever will.

She’s okay with that. Somewhere in her mind she is. She’s got him. The other him. That him that never leaves, that never abandons her. Except on the beach. That bloody beach. With a whole universe between them. Trapped in time. Tricked by their own game.

And now she’s trying to find her way back, staring at the empty mug. They say that the residue can tell the future and although she believes that’s all a load of bollocks, she wishes the Doctor were there to tell her the scientific evidence behind the truth of the statement only to tell her that he wholly agreed with her.

She smiles and they all stare at her, like something has just been fixed. But she smiles a lot, more than they realise. She smiles more than she cries. Because she always has hope. He’s always in her mind, the memories barely half a substitute for a man that is double any other man that her life revolves around.

That’s what makes her hold on. That hope of something better, that hope that because he’s there, in her mind, that he’ll be there in flesh. But that’s not enough, it’s never enough. She knows that. She won’t accept that.

It takes a year for her to do anything of the kind. It’s the day that she’s introduced to Torchwood, a company that she had subconsciously learnt to hate. Still does, in fact. But, this is a different Torchwood. Nothing like the one that dragged her into this horrific universe in the first place. It’s kind, gentle.

Well, she thinks it is, at least.


	3. Drabble III

Twilight dust pools in her hand, glimmering gold. She smiles, she can’t contain it. Even here, even now, in the darkness of her bedroom, she can’t help but stare at it like its goldust. It is. Maybe not in the technical sense but gold dust nonetheless.

He gave this to her. This was his gift. Before he left. Before she was left behind. Before her life returned to its good old mundanity. Before she started crying.

She sits with it in her hand, not caring that she failed his orders. She had opened the vial, poured the liquid solid into her hands, letting the syrup-like texture trail through the crevices of her youthful hands.

The smile is soaked but she no longer cares. The tears shine as brightly as the twilight dust but she pays it no attention. This is her reminder of him, their final attachment and she won’t ignore it for the world. Not until he comes back. Yes, until he comes back.

It takes her hours to contain herself, when her own tears have changed the consistency of the dust. She attempts to pour it back into the impossibly small vial but the liquid is too thick and only a drop makes it inside as the rest runs gently down the sides of the glass, dripping calmy onto her pink covers.

She doesn’t mind, the gold matches the pink- a harmony of colour that she had never attempted to make in the first place but is finding herself aweing as anyway. She corks the vial and places it just where it had been left before, not minding that the small drop was almost worthless now. What it was even for in the first place is something she is still uncertain of too. It doesn’t quite make sense; why the Doctor would leave; why the Doctor would leave her this.


	4. Drabble IV

He smiled, his face lighting up as the stars danced around the rocky planes. Grass curled at his feet, encasing his shoes with tufts of red. Gallifrey. A city like no other. And, beyond that: home. The two suns in the sky hid behind the horizon, the inky sky devoid of any moon. The sea of black was tainted with glittering stars, millions of them, all a thousand light-years away, all a thousand years out of time.

The Doctor, if he were to be asked, would not be able to give any reason as to why he was back here, in the shadow of his old home, the TARDIS humming at his back. She was glad to be her, he hoped. It was becoming harder to interpret her these days.

Ten regenerations and one he didn’t count at all later and he still hated this place, no matter how much of a home it was. He appreciated beauty, above most things, really. But this, despite its glistening towers and unfathomable nature, was nothing more than a past long gone. A past that he was not allowed to go back to.

Before the Time War. Before it all fell. Before he made it fall.

‘Doctor!’ He turned as the TARDIS door creaked open and Rose Tyler, her eyes shut tightly as she had been told to, stood there smiling at him.

‘I told you not to come out, Rose.’ He sighed, his hands stuffed tightly into the pockets of his long jacket.

‘No, you told me not to look. I’m not.’ She smiled wider, her tongue poking out between her teeth as her beam outmatched the light of the stars.

‘We’re going. I just…’ He paused, regretting ever starting the sentence at all. If it was going to be anyone, it would be Rose that dragged the truth from him.


	5. Rose & The Doctor

Something about this day makes it far more interesting than the last. His smile beams wider and the TARDIS hums gleefully as he whistles the tunes of a forgotten planet. Yes, something about today is better. The TARDIS pumps vigorously and the handlebars fall easier under his hand. The buttons seem to glow, waiting to be pressed in the right order. For once, he’s glad for the help.

Regeneration still seeps through his body but something about this frame makes him feel better about the whole ordeal. Something about this is better, yes, much better. He looks down at himself and laughs. Skinny. He’s been skinny before, right? Yes, definitely. Wait, maybe not.

Okay, maybe today isn’t all that good but rather his foggy brain is tricking him into believing so. His memory isn’t great and this body was not helping him. Taller than the last, he recognises, means that swinging around the TARDIS lands him a little too far- pressing the wrong button, pulling the wrong lever.

Yet, something about today is still great. Because, no matter what he does, the TARDIS just isn’t accepting that it’s wrong at all. The date has not changed and their course has remained the same. Sometimes, it seems like the TARDIS doesn’t need a pilot at all.

Earth, that’s his destination. Gladly so. He smiled and laughs again, jolting as the TARDIS avoids an incoming meteor. He never stops whistling anyway. The spirit hums through his blood and something about the naivety of the state he’s in makes this all the more enjoyable.

Something good is definitely coming.

Okay, maybe not. The TARDIS jolts again and this time, the Doctor sees no incoming meteors or rubble heading towards them. But rather, he sees his coordinates changing. The whistling halts faster than he can register and he sends himself flying into the console, a large spark cutting into his face.

He peers up nervously to see the coordinates still changing at a rapid pace. But, nonetheless, it still always remains the same. Earth. Always Earth. But it’s covering the whole planet. One by one, it goes through each country until it reaches London and then it goes through every estate, every house, every apartment and every car until it reaches exactly what it wants.

And dear god, the TARDIS has never flown so fast.

The Doctor can do nothing to stop it. Whilst the TARDIS allowed him to press every button, it was rendering them useless under his crashing touch. Even the hammer, which usually shows who’s boss, didn’t do jack against the Time and Relative Dimension in Space.

He resigns himself into collapsing to the floor as the TARDIS jolts again, letting the newly placed metal grates fracture at the bumpy ride. Shamefully so, he has designed it to be more sturdy than beautiful and here it is, breaking under his weight alone (and maybe the throws of gravity).

Only does it truly settle in when they crash to the ground. The Doctor barely has time to stand up and brush himself off before there’s a violent knocking at his door.

‘What?’ He throws his head around, shock framing his oddly shaped face. Longer than the last one.

‘What!’ He screams as another knock comes. He walks hesitantly towards the rattling door, albeit that no human has the strength to knock it down. Something about this day has just gotten so much worse. And after he’d picked his outfit of all things! That’s the best bit! Well, maybe redecoration wins but that’s another matter entirely.

The pounding comes again, louder this time and far more insistent than before. Something about this makes him shiver. Something that hadn’t made him before. Something that may have something to do with the voices he can hear outside.

‘Rose, there’s a bloody blue box in our living room!’

‘I know mum, let’s just knock again.’

‘No, Rose! We’re knocking this door down. No one dares and parks there bloody spaceship in my house.’

‘It’s not a spaceship mum.’

‘Well how else did it get here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘See! Now, I’m going to get an axe from Rita. That should break this wood to pieces.’

‘Why does Rita have an axe?’

‘In case of burglars.’

‘Wha-’ The girl, younger he presumes, is cut off by the slamming of a door, multiple in fact until the Doctor can the outside world drone in before being slammed out again. At some point, the Doctor wonders when his hearing got so good. Oh, that would be the stethoscope in his hands. When did he pick that up?

Unravelling the equipment from his neck, he throws it the floor just as the door flies open, his hand pressed firmly against the blue wood.

‘Hello, there.’ He knows that as soon as the smile graces his face that it’s real; not that awkward comfort or that sly smirk. This is a smile. Because, Rassilon, she is beautiful. All pink and yellow, just as many humans are. But, he can’t explain this beauty. This is something else entirely, unbridled and youthful but altogether just...human. That’s it, she’s human. As human as they come. She looks rather like a lot of them, really. But there’s that something, that something that sets her apart from the rest something he loves and…

‘Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house.’ She’s holding a knife. Okay, this is not what expected but he can deal with this situation. Somehow.

‘Just put the knife down.’

‘You broke in, you can’t just tell me to put the bloody knife down!’

‘But I just did.’ He smirks, taking a gentle step back and raising his hand, pushing hers down, the touch electric as the knife clatters to the floor.

‘Who. Are. You?’

‘I’m the Doctor.’ He smiles wider now and he can’t help but skip two heartbeats as she raises an eyebrow suspiciously and stares at the TARDIS behind him.

‘Not a policeman then?’

‘Well, I’m not really a doctor either. Not in the conventional sense anyway.’

‘But you just said you were.’

‘No, I’m the Doctor.’

‘You say that as if it will make a difference.’ She scowls, falling to the floor to pick the knife up and twirl it in her hand. And although it’s not aimed at him, the Doctor can’t help but gulp at the insinuation.

‘Okay, okay, just let me explain.’

‘Go ahead.’ She nods and folds her arms, the silver knife- well, stainless steel- aimed at the floor like a dart. One that can be aimed straight at his head in a second.

‘Um, well, Rose Tyler. I am...your doctor! Yes, you’re doctor. House calls and all that. Busy man me so I just, well, skipped the front door.’

‘You just said you weren’t an actual doctor.’

‘Did I? Yes! I did. Rose Tyler, you’re a clever one.’

‘You just said it-’

‘So! Rose Tyler-’

‘Stop saying my name! How do you even know my name?’

‘It’s on the database. Oh, wait! That was a bad thing to say, wasn’t it? Not really used to this whole new body thing. Haven’t done it in a while.’ He strains as he clicks his neck and fingers in a blood-curdling crack, not caring about the blatant lie that just rolled off his lips. Rose flinches but doesn’t dare drop the knife, her first only tightening around the weapon.

‘Rose! Can you believe it? She wouldn’t give me the axe, god-forsaken woman!’ The front door creaks as its pushed open and what the Doctor presumes to be Rose’s mother walks in, her face drawn into a spiteful grimace.

‘Well, nice seeing you, Rose Tyler.’ He speaks her name with an enjoyment he hasn’t felt in a long time, the name so fun to play on his lips, loving how he could snap the ending with an ‘a’. He backs away, towards his faithful blue box with a confidence that he didn’t know he had in him until now.

‘Oh no you don’t.’ She spits, clutching his arm and forcing him away from his ship with vehement he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

‘Wha-!’

‘Mum! In here!’ She calls and within seconds, Rose Tyler’s mother is coming into the room, with her hands balled into tight fists at her side.

‘Who is he?’

‘This is, uh, a doctor from the city. He’s going ‘round the flats for a routine check. He’s visiting us first so he, well, brought his car.’ She smiles awkwardly at the uncomfortable lie but the Doctor feels no fear as he digs into his pocket and brings out the psychic paper, flicking it in front of Jackie’s face before tucking it back away in his jacket.

‘Oh! I’m sorry, doctor! Where would you like to start.’ The woman smiles and the Doctor blanches in surprise as she doesn’t question his odd vehicle, just as much as he is surprised by Rose’s lack of ‘outing him’ (that was the human term, wasn’t it? He’s assured it is but he still can’t make up his mind).


	6. Headspace

Far gone. Years of it and he was far gone. His mind barely comprehendible. So out of this world that even the psychiatrist couldn’t name what he had. Some said he was a genius, others said he was from another planet entirely.

He just liked to call himself brilliant.

After twenty-one years of living, he almost expected life to get a little more dull but still he found that even the slightest of things was enough to fascinate him. Rolling the ball in his hand, he calculated the centripetal force, all within his tiny, little human mind. With such ease too. All the equations planted in his brain with little effort. It was the same with words. Although he wasn’t the most eloquent of men, he could still brag that he certainly knew all the words of the dictionary- even if he didn’t often use them.

And more than that, he liked to think that his true brilliance came in the form of general knowledge. He could start easy; name the planets in order; say how many days there were in each month. But, he could also say miraculously hard things; who sold more records, Elvis or The Beatles; each and every prime number up to ten thousand; state the longest word of eight different languages. And it really was such as shame that others just didn’t see his brilliance.

They called it arrogance, much to his chagrin.

Yet, as arrogant as he was, his lecturers put up with him just enough to sit through their classes. One rule they gave him, one. Do. Not. Interrupt. It was difficult sometimes. He often struggled to make sense of the gibberish they were spewing out. Wrong, all of it wrong. And he could correct it so easily, he could save these gullible twenty-somethings from having so, so many misconceptions about the universe.

He could show them how the hack into the Army’s private network. He could tell them that there were aliens, he was sure of it, all you have to do is look closer. He could tell them...well, no, he couldn’t. This was all just a fantasy. He wasn’t a lecturer, nor did he ever want to be. Ugh, what a horrifying thought. Him, a lecturer? Never. He didn’t think he could put up with a single one of these people for a second.

He glared at their bored faces. Although, he must have looked just a dulled. Unfortunately, he knew that the others were not bored for their superior knowledge but for their lack of much intellect at all. None of them even cared about Physics, they were only on this course because they thought it was a ‘clever’ thing to do. Something about that irritated him all the more.

But, just as his mind drifted too far and he found himself seething in his chair, the door flung open. He couldn’t help but let a little smile pass by his lips at the sight of her. Blonde hair, brown eyes and a wide but terrified smile. ‘Professor Moore?’ She panted, leaning down to catch her breath with a hand pressed gently against her chest.

‘Yes, that’s me.’ The lecturer repeated in the usual monotonous and dull tone that sent him drifting to sleep on more than one occasion.

‘Professor Lang sent me, she says it's an emergency, she needs you in her office.’ Prof. Moore nodded and fled the room, his footsteps echoing ominously against the stairs as he walked through the doors and slamming them behind him, leaving a shocked blonde haired girl on the other side.

He stood up, finding himself shaky on his legs as he approached the girl, his hands tucked in his pockets as he strode up to the girl. ‘You okay?’ He asked, looking down at her in the least patronising way possible. Which was surprisingly hard due to the height difference.

‘Yeah...yeah.’ She shook her head and blinked a few times before finally looking up and smiling at him, a cheeky little thing that sent his heart reeling. ‘I’m Rose by the way, Prof. Lang’s personal assistant.’ She pushed her hand out and he took it dutifully, trying to shake it with as much conviction he could muster despite the blush that was threatening his cheeks.

‘I’m, well, depends on who you ask.’ He stated, scratching his head awkwardly. ‘Just, call me Doc. It’s the easiest.’

‘Okay then, Doc.’ She smiled again, his tongue poking out between her teeth and he had to resist the urge to run. The name Doc alone on her lips, although definitely wrong and something he had made up on the spot, made sure that his cheeks were flaming red.

His name, amongst other things, was a complicated thing. He refused to use his birth name for starters and he didn’t exactly like the ‘John Smith’ that he put down as his real name for lack of originality and simplicity. The other nicknames were not something that he wished to repeat to the girl and that left only one thing. A nick-nick name. The Doctor, one of his most commonly used nicknames, still felt a little silly to introduce himself with and although he held no shame, this was not an instance in which he could go by his own rules. So, Doc it was, no matter how much he hated it. At this point, he would allow her to call him anything.


	7. Rose

_‘You taught me the courage of stars before you left, how light carries on endlessly, even after death. With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite: how rare and beautiful it is to even exist’_

At midnight, Rose reached the pier, the inky sky smiling down at her pitiful form. Tears soaked her cheeks and her puffy eyes blocked the view from her sight. But, listening to the calming sloshing of the waves and the clanging of the wind against the silence bell was enough to put her at ease.

She pushed back and forth on the balls of her feet, looking down at her frail hands. It was all a blur, the veins protruding violently from her skin but the blue still barely distinctive from the pink. Leaving one of the splintered banister, she ran the other through her blonde hair, thinking through his words. Thinking through everything.

The waves, tossing and turning with the aggression she couldn’t muster, taunted her to jump. She never would, she knew she wouldn’t. She had so much to wait for. But wait she must. That’s what he told her to do. Wait.

Her eyes darted to the horizon, where the inky sky met the onyx waves in a fight for the shoreline, never winning, never losing, a continuous equilibrium that would be fought until the sun finally made her appearance and balanced the battle, turning the water blue and the sky grey.

She stared morosely at the stars reflections in the water. Just like her, they were stuck as an echo of their former glory. She had been up there, with the stars, in the Universe, travelling. Travelling so far, in time and space. So far with a man she barely knew. And now she felt like she knew him too much.

And here she was, alone, an echo like the stars in the sea. Left behind. A replica with diminished light, diminished passion. She was going to find her way back to him, she was. She knew she was. She had to. But that didn’t change that fact that an echo could fade in seconds.

She was mortal and, for all intents and purposes, he was not. They were never meant to fall in love. The sky was the place for the stars, not the sea. The wall between them was only a reinforcement. Even a supernova couldn’t keep them together, couldn’t speak those last words. She was trapped and he must have been glad.

That’s why she cried nowadays. She thought of him and how happy he must be. He’d probably moved on by now, found another (one in a wedding gown or a doctor’s uniform) to tag along. She was nothing special. She’d always known that. Sarah Jane was proof enough of that.

It didn’t matter who went with the Doctor, they were always left behind. Love or not. Friendship or not. Always left behind.

Her pale hands clutched at the cool metal of the rail, her knuckles white with pressure. She gulped, trying to refrain from sobbing but finding that even after all this time, months now, that she still had the energy to cry for him. Choking cries that were loud enough for him to hear all the way in another universe. One wall between them, one universe and one loud cry.

She pushed away vehemently and stalked down the pier, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her grey hoodie, a dreary look for a dreary night. Her eyes still sparkled with unshed tears, matching the glistening lights hidden beneath the surface of the sloshing waves.

The shops were dead with the night- lights shut off, doors locked and people vanished. The peace was as eerie as it was comforting, the whispers of the night so much clearer in the silence of the main street, the wind rushing through it like a tunnel.

Each breath was another puff of steam, clouds forming around her face as she warmed her face. She regretted leaving now, the biting cold seeping through her skin. Shivers wracked her body and her fingers were barely felt as she wiggled them in her pockets to try and return any sensation.

She treaded carefully through the paved streets, each tap of her feet another booming clap to wreck the silence. She wished, just for a second, that she could ask him to do it all again. To run his gib with that charming smile and go on until the universe had reached its end and there they would be, the two who got to witness it.

She had tried to write it down once, to explain the magic on a page but each world felt like an understatement, like she couldn’t describe that goofy grin or the way that he laughed like he hadn’t a care in the world. That’s what she loved; he laughed through it all, after all the pain and the agony of his life and he could still laugh like a child. And he always meant it. He didn’t cover his sadness, he just allowed himself to be happy. Because of her, he said. Of course, she had never believed him but the thought was pleasing nonetheless.

The clouds rolled in like trains into a station, their thunderous claps echoing in the endless sky. The rain poured next, heavy and torturous but she endured it with a smile. He had taught her that; always smile because then you know that, at least, you can be happy, even if you aren’t yet.

Each step closer to home, each raindrop that soaked her skin, was another memory of him. Like her life flashing before her eyes, she remembered him, lying to herself that the picture that was ingrained in her mind would stay that way forever. But, everything fades in time, just like she would fade from his.

She’d give anything just to see him one more time and hear his promise on last time. Just so that he could remind her that no matter how much he travelled, the universe was made just to be seen by her eyes. Not his, not anyone else's. He had gifted her the universe and in return she had given him grief.

She wanted to hear it all again and then maybe she could finally write it down on paper like she had been struggling to do for the months long past. Maybe then she could make sense of the memories in her head and put them into a logical sequence. Maybe then she could finally describe that laugh. Maybe then she could explain why she was left behind.

Just one more time. That’s all she needed; one more time. The universe that was tailored to fit her- for her body, mind and eyes.

The blistering cold faded into a mindless graze and she hastily returned home, the dark streets abandoned by the flickering street lights. The house came into view behind the hazy fog of darkness, revealing the elaborate mansion in all its glory. Light flickered through the grand windows and silhouettes of people rushed about inside. She saw her mother, no doubt having another argument with Pete, waving her hands frantically as she paced the room.

Withholding a laugh, Rose opened the door with a creak, her key jammed in the dodgy lock.


End file.
